Politics and Political Parties in China

After its founding in July 1921, the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) had only 57 members and little influence, but by 2005 the CCP had 70.8
million members
and controlled all political, governmental, and military organs. Although political
reform was not
one of the Four Modernizations promulgated so earnestly after 1978, the CCP
has allowed
greater participation by nonparty members in economic and social developments.
Within the
party, the CCP practices what it calls “democratic centralism,”
which, in effect, means that the
minority follows the decisions of the majority, each level follows the directives
of the next
highest level, and all follow the lead of the party’s center. Constitutionally,
the CCP’s national
congress is the party’s highest body.

It is convened every five years, usually prior to the National
People’s Congress. However, to operate, it elects a Central Committee,
which in turn elects (or
approves) the members of the Political Bureau and that organ’s even more
elite Standing
Committee. The current Central Committee has 198 members and 158 alternate members.
The
Political Bureau has 24 members and one alternate member, and its Standing Committee
has
nine members, including Hu Jintao, who became CCP general secretary in November
2002,
succeeding Jiang Zemin. Of its 66.4 million members, 16.6 percent are women,
only 6.1 percent
members of minority nationalities, and 23.1 percent under age 35. Unlike the
largely peasant,
worker, and military veteran party of the past, 29.2 percent are high-school
graduates, 17.8
percent of CCP members have undergraduate degrees, and 0.5 percent have graduate
degrees.

When Mao led the party from 1935 to his death in 1976, he held the position
of CCP chairman.
His immediate and short-term successor Hua Guofeng also held the title of chairman,
as did
Hua’s successor when he took office in 1981, Hu Yaobang, who held the
title for a short time
until the position was then abolished at the CCP Twelfth Party Congress in September
1982,
endowing the general secretary as the most powerful position in the party.

Deng Xiaoping,
despite being the paramount leader in China in the post-Mao era, never held
the top party or state positions. Instead, he allowed more junior leaders to
hold these positions. When Deng’s longestterm
successor, Jiang Zemin, retired in stages between 2002 and 2004, he appeared
to have
assumed a similar behind-the-throne position of influence.

Day-to-day management of the CCP is carried out by a central secretariat and
various functional
departments: the International Liaison Department, United Front Work Department,
Organization Department, Propaganda Department, and Party Central Academy. Party
secretaries are found at all levels of government and the military and in industries,
academia, and
other parts of society. In 2004 the CCP reported more than 3.3 million party
branches throughout
the nation. Its main organs are the daily newspaper Renmin Ribao (People’s
Daily) and the
semimonthly theoretical journal Qiu Shi (Seeking Truth, formerly titled Hongqi,
or Red Flag).

China also has titular “democratic” parties that were loyal to
the CCP in the pre-1949 period and
continue to function within the structure of the Chinese People’s Political
Consultative
Conference (CPPCC), namely, the China Association for Promoting Democracy, China
Democratic League, China Democratic National Construction Association, China
Zhigongdang
(Party for Public Interest), Chinese Peasants’ and Workers’ Democratic
Party, Jiusan (September
Third—a reference to the date of the defeat of Japan in 1945) Society,
Guomindang
Revolutionary Committee, and Taiwan Self-Government League.

An independent opposition
party, the China Democracy Party, has been banned since 1998 and its leaders
arrested.